Lemon Sherbet and Dolly Blue - Lynn Knight

I caught this on Radio 4 early on August 3rd - I guess it was the mention of Chesterfield and in particular Whittington Moor which caught my ear. So, I ordered it.

It turns out Lynn Knight used to be an editor at Virago, too, and has written some women's history books

I think anyone would find the social and personal history interesting - Lynn concentrates on the three adopted children, her great-grandfather, Dick, her great-aunt Eva, and her own mother, Cora.  Around their tales, she includes a lot of local history.

For me, the book has a particular resonance, since my father's family lived in Chesterfield, and the Whittington area at that.  She talks about Pearson's Pottery, where my grandfather and uncle still worked when I was a child, and Shentall's grocer's - the yard was very close to Queen Street where my father and his brothers and sisters grew up.

Darkover stories - Marion Zimmer Bradley

Thanks to Djibril for recommending these.

Khaled Hosseini - 1000 Splendid Suns

This is the second book by the author of The Kite Runner. I have not yet seen that film, though I have read the book.

Hosseini's novel covers the miserable lives of two women in Afghanistan, covering the period before the arrival of communism, its overthrow, the jihad, the coming to power of the Taliban. It ends as the Taliban have been removed, and Laila and her childhood love, Tariq, reunited after many years, return to Kabul.
I found the book interesting for its social history, the information about the position of women, and the exploration of the relationship between the two central characters. Mariam the illegitimate child of a rich man from Herat,is married off to Rasheed, a bitter older man and the relationship becomes increasingly oppressive and violent as she fails to give him a child. Twenty years later Laila, the daughter of an educated couple in Kabul, who die in an explosion, becomes Rasheed's wife, in order to cover up her pregnancy by Tariq. The relationship between husband and wife turns sour after the birth of Laila's second child, a boy. Meanwhile the two women change from enemies to close friends.

I would have enjoyed the book much more if Rasheed had not been such an obnoxious individual. The personal violence becomes more horrifying than all the repression going on in the country.

Another aspect that I found unsatisfying is the shift in point of view from Mariam to Laila part of the way through the book. I would have liked to follow Mariam more closely during the intervening years before she and Laila are thrown together.

Simone de Beauvoir 1908- 1986

Simone de Beauvoir was born on January 9th, 1908.
Do a Guardian quiz on her life and work:

One of her best-known books is The Second Sex, published in 1947. In this she examines the role of women, and claims that many of the social differences between the sexes arise from nurture rather than nature.
She is also, ironically for a feminist, known as the life-long companion of Jean-Paul Sartre, the existentialist philospher.
Some things she said which appeal to me:
'Each of us is responsible for everything and to every human being.'
'When in doubt, always say yes to life.'

The photograph below comes from an article in the Guardian:


In 2006 a footbridge over the River Seine was named after her. It leads to the Bibliotheque Nationale.



I saw Simone
I tried to write this from the perspective of myself aged 21 or 22, not very self-confident, too inlcined to hero-worship.
I have edited it slightly today, from the first version written in March 2005.


In 1969
I saw her
in the Bib Nat
wearing the turban
she favoured.

Small,
insignificant,
making notes.

She was there,
writing
and
I was there,
reading
what she wrote
years before.

Did I get up
from my place
and go to her?


Hello, you won’t know me.
I wanted to be you
when I grew up.

No. I sat still,
looked sideways.

What could I say
that she hadn’t heard
A million times before?


I left her alone
with her work
and fame
undisturbed.